Senior Political Scientist, RAND; Professor of Policy Analysis, RAND School of Public Policy
Scott W. Harold is a senior political scientist at RAND, and a professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy. He specializes in the foreign and defense policies of China, Japan, North and South Korea, Taiwan, and Oceania.
Prior to rejoining RAND in April 2024, Harold served as a senior advisor to the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for East Asia in the Biden–Harris administration from 2022 to 2024. From August 2008 to March 2022, Harold worked as a senior political scientist at RAND and from 2015 to 2019 served as the associate director of the Center for Asia Pacific Policy at RAND. From 2006 to 2008 he worked at the Brookings Institution as a senior research analyst.
Since 2006 he has been an adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University. He has also been an adjunct professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and an adjunct professor of international affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University.
In 2024, Harold was awarded the Council on Foreign Relations/Hitachi International Affairs Fellowship—Japan. Previously, from 2012 to 2017, Harold was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has also held visiting fellowships at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, Institut Montaigne, and the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation. He is fluent in Chinese. His Ph.D. from Columbia University examined China's decisionmaking with respect to joining the World Trade Organization.
Ph.D., M.A. in political science, Columbia University; B.A. in international relations, Michigan State University
Mandarin Chinese
Adjunct Professor of Security Studies, Security Studies Program, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
